The subject matter described and/or illustrated herein relates generally to guide pins, and more particularly, to a fixture for installing guide pins to a substrate.
Some known computer systems, such as rack and panel computer systems, include a primary circuit board that is electrically connected to one or more peripheral circuit boards. The primary circuit board is commonly referred to as a backplane and the peripheral circuit boards are commonly referred to as daughter cards. Typically, one or more guide pins are used to mechanically link the backplane with the daughter card(s). The guide pins may provide preliminary alignment and/or preliminary guidance between the backplane and the daughter card(s) to facilitate mating electrical connectors of the backplane and the daughter card(s). The guide pins may also provide load carrying capability between the backplane and the daughter card(s) as well as keying and electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection.
Guide pins are commonly installed individually within the backplane and/or the daughter cards one at a time. For example, a mounting end portion of each guide pin is individually aligned with and inserted into a corresponding through hole of the backplane or daughter card on a first side thereof. A fastener, such as a threaded fastener, is then connected to the mounting end portion of the guide pin on a second side of the backplane or daughter card to hold the mounting end portion of the guide pin within the through hole. However, individually installing each guide pin one at a time may be more difficult and/or time consuming than is desired, which may cause installing guide pins to be more expensive than desired.
To avoid the time and/or difficulty of individually installing guide pins one at a time, fixture plates have been proposed for use in simultaneously installing a plurality of guide pins. For example, a fixture plate may include a plurality of holes for holding the guiding portions of the plurality of guide pins such that the mounting end portions are exposed for insertion into the holes within the backplane or daughter card. However, the pattern of holes within the fixture plate must match the pattern of holes of the particular backplane or daughter card to which the guide pins are being installed. Accordingly, known fixture plates may be more expensive than is desired because a different fixture plate having the matching pattern of holes must be fabricated for each backplane and/or daughter card having a different pattern of holes.
A need remains for a less expensive fixture for simultaneously installing a plurality of guide pins to a substrate.